Miranda Hart: Call the Midwife delivers fans for BBC's latest comedy eccentric

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2012/feb/01/miranda-hart-call-the-midwife

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When the author Jennifer Worth first saw Miranda Hart on television, she knew immediately she should play Camilla Cholomondely-Browne in the BBC adaptation of her bestselling memoirs, so she sent the comedy actor her books in the post. Hart was intrigued.

"I flicked straight to Chummy's entrance in the book – well, you would, wouldn't you? – and thought, 'I really hope I get to play her.'"

Worth died last June, before she could see Call the Midwife become a massive Sunday-night ratings hit – its first episode outshone the much-hyped Sherlock to become BBC1's most-watched drama debut episode ever – with Chummy one of its most-loved characters.

In her first straight dramatic role, albeit one with comedy elements, Hart has proved a hit: Chummy's awkward flirting with Constable Noakes, wobbly cycling and surprise medical ability delighting the show's more than 10 million viewers.

If one were being tough, one might argue that Chummy is not that much of a stretch for Hart, who has almost become shorthand for the clumsy, well-meaning but essentially bonkers posh girl destined to say the wrong thing in front of the man she madly fancies. But the part has underlined Hart's relatively swift rise from supporting comedy actor to bankable BBC1 star.

"While there is a big tradition of comedians going straight – from Max Wall and Mayall and Edmondson doing Beckett to Hugh Laurie in House, Victoria Wood in Housewife 49 and Dawn French as a murderous nurse in Tender Loving Care – it is an indication of Hart's impact on the national psyche that she has gone from sitcom to straight so quickly," says the comedy critic Bruce Dessau.

Finding fame in her late 30s after more than a decade of grafting – at 26, she told her parents she was going to leave her PA job and become a comedian – Hart is by no means an overnight success. There were Edinburgh shows and numerous small appearances, and supporting roles in other sitcoms such Absolutely Fabulous, Not Going Out and as the doomed sci-fi sitcom Hyperspace.

But it was once Hart was given the space to do her own brand of comedy with Miranda, the under-the-radar Radio 2 then BBC2 hit that turned her into a household name, that her full potential was realised. In 2011 she won three British Comedy awards, including the People's Choice award, after the second series.

"Fame comes to different people at different times in their careers – but she quite quickly established herself in the viewers' hearts," says Danny Cohen, controller of BBC1, which will broadcast the third series of Miranda. "There's a lot of affection for her; I think people like to be in her company."

Call the Midwife has only embedded that feeling further, says Cohen.

"Although her part has some comic moments, it's got really emotional parts too and it's been great for the audience to see she has this range."

Miranda is a sitcom that divides offices, families and friends with its old-fashioned gags and slapstick comedy: it seems you either find a clumsy tall woman falling over and then rolling her eyes at the camera gloriously, uproariously amusing – or unfathomably childish and annoying.

Hart taps into a long British tradition of comedy eccentrics, says Dessau. "But she also divides the critics like that other old-school oddball, Norman Wisdom, who was written off as a witless, irritating idiot with a penchant for falling over by some, and seen as a comic genius by others."

So Miranda's dress gets stuck in a cab, revealing her bra and big knickers to all and sundry. People address her as "Sir" because of her short hair and 6ft1 frame. She trips over coat stands daily. "Her style of comedy is very much 'getting it wrong, blundering through life'," says Sarah Hadland, who plays Miranda's small, neat sidekick Stevie in the sitcom.

"We all feel like we're getting it wrong – but Miranda's actually saying 'I <em>am</em> getting it wrong.' We're all still really awkward teenagers inside – we just try and hide it a bit now that we're older." Hart, of course, puts it all out on show.

That self-recognition is part of what makes Miranda such fun, as her mother might say, and gives the sitcom its appeal. "It's that warmth, that charm," says Cohen. "It's warmth which I'd like to find more of – and we need more of it. You can see by the audience response to it. That kind of laugh-out-loud comedy doesn't come along very often."

Miranda is a throwback to the 70s-style comedy Hart watched while at boarding school in Berkshire – late-night cutting-edge comedy on Channel 4 was the wrong side of lights out, so Hart grew up on a diet of pre-watershed sitcoms, with Eric Morecambe as her hero. But it also relates to the trend for sitcoms such as Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Trip and Grandma's House in which performers play extreme versions of themselves.

To what extent Miranda is a version of Hart has never been entirely clear. She stresses that the on-screen Miranda isn't actually her; that she is acting a character that is an exaggerated version of herself. "I suppose a lot of people say 'Ooh, are you doing the acting'," the comedian said at a screening of Call the Midwife. "But in many ways it wasn't any different to what I've done before. I always see myself as much more a comedy actress than I do a standup."

There are aspects of the on-screen Miranda that are recognisable from school, where Hart was well-liked and funny, says a contemporary. And Hadland describes a quite delicious scenario of the off-screen Miranda echoing her on-screen counterpart. "We were at the National Television awards [last week] and were thinking 'Why are we here? How does everyone else know what to do?' And then we realised that they didn't." Instead of heading for the afterparty, the pair headed home for cups of tea and bed.

Fans will doubtless have the striped sofa and fruit with faces of Miranda's flat in mind. And it does feel difficult to split the characters from the actors – people presume that she and Hart have been a double act for years, says Hadland, when in fact they only met when she auditioned for Miranda.

She paints an interesting picture of Hart's writing process. The comedian writes at home with her dog, Peggy, for company. But she is also very collaborative – Stevie's trademark "What did you do today … " impression of Heather Small developed through improvisation and Hart is quick to clock details that she can develop. "Whenever we do things together things always happen. We can't manage a simple trip before she's got out her notebook."

"She is not one of those writers who is all 'You'll do what I say' but asks 'What can you bring to this?,'" says Hadland. "She's incredibly generous with lines. She takes delight in other people being funny in her show. Miranda wants us all to be as funny as she is."

Her co-stars on Call the Midwife are no less flattering. Asked ahead of broadcast what viewers would make of Hart's first dramatic performance, Judy Parfitt didn't miss a beat: "I think she's going to be a revelation. I think's she's absolutely wonderful." "We had an absolute ball," said Jenny Agutter.

While it is noticeable that Hart is reluctant to fly the flag for women in comedy – she has repeatedly told interviewers how uncomfortable she is with that notion – in Miranda she has written what TV rarely provides: four very strong, funny female roles, with Patricia Hodge and Sally Phillips as her bracingly brilliant mum and ludicrously jolly-hockeysticks schoolfriend respectively, and a man in the show's "girlfriend" role.

The reaction of teenage girls is really interesting, says Hadland. "They go mad for it. It's not cool and they love it. Because I think they're all role models for girls. It's such a positive thing she's done. It's almost saying you can be like this, you don't have to look glossy and like you're off Towie [The Only Way is Essex]."

Of course Hart spends quite a lot of the show sending herself up physically – using her height or her lack of daintiness as punchlines. And really, how could watching her topple into an open grave not be funny? "She is a wonderful physical performer," says Cohen. "She's very agile as a performer, and is able to deliver again and again so it's a very joyful watch."

But there can be something almost painful about the way Hart holds her appearance up for ridicule. She has said she is less than comfortable with her height, but you do rather wish she'd give herself a break.

"Miranda has the most beautiful face, these long legs and sometimes we want to go: 'I don't think you quite see you how we see you' but at the same time I think she's very comfortable doing that," says Hadland. And there is a counterbalance of course: Gary, the very attractive chef, quite obviously fancies Miranda rotten.

The self-deprecation is part of the reason Hart is so popular, but it seems to run deeper than just her appearance. Even after the success of the first series of Miranda, she seemed unsure of her ability to repeat the trick, say those who met her at industry events.

And she was reluctant for her performance in Call the Midwife to overshadow those of the rest of the cast, not capitalising on her role in the press. "She's part of an ensemble so it's not about her – there's fantastic performances across the board and she's one of them," says Cohen. Many other performers would not have resisted.

Hart has spoken of a period of agoraphobia in her 20s that marked a particularly bad time. "It runs in the family and I see it as a hereditary form of chemical imbalance, bad luck-bad wiring … I'll always be a fairly anxious person. I have a good cry at bad news and get rather down. Pessimism is my default setting," she told the Daily Telegraph.

However, she persisted with comedy – finding support from Jennifer Saunders, who saw her audition for the BBC – but not making a huge splash on the comedy scene. Her sketch-based Edinburgh shows in the early noughties were never great critical successes, but they sowed the seeds for Miranda.

"What I recall most about her shows was Hart's ease at sending herself and her ambitions up – keen to be the centre of attention but also happy to be the butt of the gags," says Dessau. "There was never anything vicious here. In an age when comedy was often cynical and nasty they had a chaotic, shambolic, innocent-but-knowing charm."

The same, of course, may be said of the sitcom that bought Miranda Hart fame, and the Sunday-night drama that is cementing it.